A Room of One's Own brings Harry Potter to downtown Madison

I came late to the Harry Potter party, only starting to read the series shortly before the sixth book was published in 2005. This wasn't due to any sort of opposition to the series, like the snobbery that rises as a backlash each time the hype wave crests with the release of a new book or movie, but rather simply due to a single, selfish desire: I didn't want to have to impatiently wait for a succession of new titles. By the time the penultimate book rolled off the presses a couple of years ago, I was ready to read, and swiftly consumed the series, falling deep into the rabbit hole of J.K. Rowling's wizarding world.

This left me with a single, impatient wait, one that ended just after the stroke of midnight on Saturday morning with the at long last official release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. While release parties were being held on Friday night at three Wal-Marts, two Border's, and one Waldenbooks in town, I happened upon word that A Room of One's Own feminist bookstore just off State Street was holding their own fete, and jumped at the chance to join the fun in downtown Madison. Just as Maxwell Street Days was winding down, I stopped in there to preorder my copy, and was told that the party started at 11 p.m. Be there, I was warned, or the book would be taken off reserve first thing Saturday morning.

"I really am overwhelmed," said Sandi Torkildson, co-owner of A Room of One's Own and host of the release party, which had a purpose beyond simply joining in the Potter craze. "The level of interest much more than I expected," she explained. "When I first though of this idea of selling Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows as a fundraiser for public school libraries in Madison, I thought maybe we'd sell 100 books." Interest quickly outpaced these initial expectations, though, and she decided to order 200 many months ago. "Luckily," she noted, "I was able to adjust my preorder early enough to get what we needed."

This set the stage for the party Friday night at the Johnson Street bookstore. Though Torkildson wasn't plugged into the promotional engine driving the big parties at the bigger chains, she organized several diversions to hurry up the wait, with the help of her employees, friends, and family. There was face painting -- mostly lightning-bolt scars for the forehead of course -- in one front window of the shop, and tarot card reading in the other. Then there was a table of sweets: red licorice wands, a bowl of mint and chocolate frogs, and a pile of extremely tasty pumpkin cookies.

The crowd, which grew steadily as midnight approached, was a mix of families and adult fans of the book, with many excited children in attendance. Though a handful was in costume and partaking heavily in the revelry, all were focused on getting their hands on the book and heading home to crack it open.

A pair of witches joked about arguing who would be the first to read Deathly Hallows. "We're here to get the Harry Potter book as quickly as possible and then rush home and read it," said Laurie Larson, her daughter exclaiming that she would get first crack at the book.

As midnight approached, the crowd coalesced into a line snaking from the cash register in the back nearly to the front door, as the employees readied their preorder lists and kept tabs on the official time as marked second by second on their computer. With about ninety seconds to go, a group of kids at the front of the line started to countdown, their voices progressively getting louder as the hour approached.

With the arrival of Saturday, July 21, the crowd cheered, the boxes were opened, and the distribution of the precious books commenced. As the line dwindled, so did the books. I was lucky to get my pre-order, which I made barely an hour before the list was closed on Friday evening. Throughout the party and the subsequent sale, numerous people stopped by the store to acquire a copy, only to find out that there were no more to be had.

"Even though we counted everything three, four times, and went over and over the list," said Torkildson, "you know there's going to be a problem." At one point, she realized there was one unsold book. "I said, 'No, I can't sell that book, there's going to be a problem.' I know we made a mistake, and sure enough we did. There was one person that didn't get on my master list, though he had already paid for it." This issue was resolved, though, and everybody who had preordered the book was able to pick theirs up at the party.

Torkildson explained that the fundraiser was inspired by a similar event conducted by the feminist bookstore Amazon Co-op in Minneapolis back when Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was released two years ago. "I just stole their idea," she said.

The idea was to raise money for public school libraries in Madison. "I have friend who is a librarian," said Torkildson, who helped her get the ball rolling with the fundraiser. Of the first fifty copies of Deathly Hallows sold at A Room of One's Own, $5 would be donated; of every copy thereafter, $10 would go to purchase books for school libraries. Ultimately, she explained, the event raised over $1,000 for six schools in the city: Marquette, O'Keefe, Lapham, Randall, Franklin, and Emerson.

"I don't have any children myself, but I have lots of nieces and nephews, and over the years I've had to buy candy, magazines I don't want, all this stuff that schools do for fundraisers," said Torkildson. "We thought, why don't we do a fundraiser with something people really want to buy?"

In order to raise these moneys, the book was sold at only a 10% discount, giving it a considerably higher price than at the chains. "My thought was that we're taking a chance because you can go online and buy it at more than a 40% discount, basically the same price I get as a retailer," explained Torkildson. "I thought that's a hard sell to say to people to do the right thing rather than give the money to a big corporate giant." The plan worked, though, as evidenced by the empty Scholastic boxes at the end of the party on Saturday morning.

"I really appreciate that they were able to help public schools," said Renee Miller Knight, who was there with a mob of fellow Potter fanatics in costume. "We all dressed in character," she noted. "We've got Ginny in her second year, Hermione at the ball, Hermione in her first year, Madam Hooch, Madam Malkin, Katie Bell now fully recovered from her incident with the necklace, and me, Mrs. Weasley. We just though we'd have some fun with this midnight party they held for the finale."

Torkildson also noted the value of events like these as independent bookstores in Madison are disappearing at a rapid pace. "This helps us a lot, it really does," she said. "It does help us financially, and I think it build good will. Without the event, I wouldn't have sold that many books. It reels good that people really cared enough about you to come out and contribute to the community." For fans still looking to get the book at A Room of One's Own, Torkildson says that they hope to have more copies in by Monday or Tuesday.

The party was fun too, and reiterated a lesson I learned shortly after getting into the series two years ago. It was a mistake to hold off on reading the series simply because I wanted to avoid impatience. With the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, there are no more new books left to anticipate. Sharing the wait and experience of the series with friends and family is as memorable as the books themselves.